Quad

Name: The Quad point was named by Frank J. Soday and James Cambron for examples found on or near the Quad site in Limestone County, Alabama.Soday and Cambron had done a survey of Paleoindian sites and related points in the Tennessee River Valley and Soday had done excavations at the Quad site, a Paleoindian village site, reporting his findings in the Tennessee Archaeologist, Vol.10, No.1 in 1954.The unfluted variety was described by Robert E. Bell in 1960.

Description: The Quad is a medium-sized, broad, fluted or unfluted point with an expanded-rounded, auriculate hafting area.Fifty-one examples were collected from thirty-one sites that measured between 86 and 47mm in length with an average length of 57mm and an average width of 23mm.The cross-section may be flattened or lenticular.The blade is developed by random or collateral flaking.Blade edges are often straight in the hafting area and convex above the hafting area to an acute distal end.Short, fairly deep flaking is found along the edges of the blade.The base is incurvate and may be fluted.Because of the thickness of these points, fluted examples have short flutes similar to Clovis points.The basal edge and especially the sides of the hafting are usually smoothed.

Age: Bell concluded from Tennessee and Ohio examples that the points dated between 6000 and 10,000 B.P.Cambron recovered examples from the University of Alabama site, Level 11, with Wheeler, Cumberland, Dalton and Paint Rock Valley points that led him to suggest a date of 10,000 B.P. or earlier.

Distribution: Joffre Coe found similar points with Dalton points at the lower levels of the Hardaway site in Piedmont, North Carolina.Examples have also been recovered in northwestern Georgia, Kentucky and Ohio.